Where’s the Curiosity? When Going to the Doctor Feels Like an Empty Experience

"The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.” - Stephen Fry

For many people, especially those living with an invisible or poorly understood condition, seeing the doctor can feel like an empty, even humiliating experience. At its best, medicine has always been a collaboration built on inquiry, listening, and the belief that every symptom tells a story worth investigating. Yet today, particularly for those with chronic, complex, or invisible conditions, appointments can instead feel like empty rituals; brief, dismissive, and devoid of genuine curiosity or engagement. The places we visit to seek understanding and assistance can become the settings where we feel most invisible and misunderstood.

One of the most disheartening aspects of modern healthcare is the loss of curiosity; the profound human drive to investigate, question, and delve deeper. Curiosity is the heart of good medicine. It fuels diagnoses, drives personalized care, and builds trust between doctor and patient. But when doctors are overburdened, rushed, or constrained by rigid systems, that vital curiosity often falls to the wayside. Rather than engaging and inquiring, practitioners might resort to making swift assumptions, using standardized treatment plans, or, even worse, dismissing a patient’s lived experience.

For patients, especially those with chronic or hard-to-diagnose illnesses, this lack of curiosity can feel like a profound betrayal. After waiting weeks or months for an appointment, they might encounter a clinician who hardly looks up from a screen, who interrupts or dismisses complex narratives, or who seems to see the symptoms as annoyances rather than clues. The sense of being part of a search for answers evaporates. This erosion of curiosity can be emotionally damaging. It sends an implicit message: “Your suffering isn’t interesting enough to explore.” It reinforces a sense of isolation and can make patients question the legitimacy of their symptoms. People may leave appointments feeling worse than when they arrived, not just physically, but psychologically, wondering if there is any point in seeking help at all.

Curiosity is also at the heart of empathy. Sympathy might say, “that must have been awful,” but empathy goes further: it asks why it was awful and what it means for the person sitting across from you (and that is part of understanding a person's Health Related Quality of Life). Curiosity is what turns a routine polite exchange into a genuine human connection. Patients do not expect their doctors to have all the answers, but they do expect them to wonder alongside them; to ask, to reflect, to show interest. Even a few thoughtful questions can change an encounter from mechanical to meaningful.

I learned this firsthand many years ago in my twenties, working as a phlebotomist in an inner London teaching hospital. Every morning on the oncology ward, I took blood from dozens of patients. While making small talk, and because I was genuinely curious, I’d ask about their treatments, check in on how yesterday’s test had gone, or remember something they’d mentioned the week before. I never thought of it as validation or as a therapeutic strategy; I was simply interested. Yet the effect was undeniable: people lit up when they realized someone remembered what they had said. Someone cared enough to ask! Even within time pressure and routine, curiosity created connection and a sense of being valued.

So, when I hear that doctors don’t have time, I am skeptical. Curiosity doesn’t always require long conversations. It requires presence, attention, and the willingness to engage. A few words can convey interest and a thoughtful follow-up can convey care and respect. Indeed, I would argue that what drains curiosity is not just lack of time but something deeper: burnout, compassion fatigue, and a culture of medicine that rewards efficiency and protocol over exploration and human engagement. Many doctors enter the profession with immense curiosity and care, only to have it eroded by bureaucratic pressures, relentless caseloads, and the emotional toll of suffering they cannot fix.

Restoring curiosity in medicine is not just about patient satisfaction; it is about restoring integrity to a profession built on care. This will require systemic changes: better support for clinicians and training that values listening and complexity as much as efficiency. Just as importantly, it calls for a cultural shift: a return to seeing patients not as problems to be dispatched quickly, but as people with stories that matter. Until that happens, many will continue to walk into medical offices hoping to be understood and receive some kind of help, only to leave feeling emptier than before, carrying the weight of unanswered questions, and quietly wondering: where did the curiosity go?

If this is something you’ve been affected by, please leave a comment below. If there’s something important you’d like to add, please do so. I'd love to hear from you.

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Dr. Ingela Thuné-Boyle is a licensed Practitioner Health Psychologist and a Doctor in Behavioural Medicine who specializes in stress and loss, especially in improving the quality of life of people struggling with long-term health problems, chronic pain and (medical) trauma. She runs a private online (telehealth) practice at www.ingelathuneboyle.com.

Please note: Advice given in this blog is not meant to take the place of therapy or any other professional advice. The opinions and views offered by the author is not intended to treat or diagnose, nor is it intended to replace the treatment and care that you may be receiving from a licensed physician or mental health provider. The author is not responsible for the outcome or results following their information and advice on this blog.